Exploring Urban Infrastructures from the Experience of Cities in the Global South: Urbanism Models, Policy Mobilities, and the Finances

Sustainable and smart urbanism models have been guiding urban development in cities across the globe over the past two decades. Almost invariably, these urbanism models require the planning for and the construction of new urban infrastructure. In addition, new sustainable and smart urban projects also often involve private urban planning firms that actively promote proprietary technologies and financing schemes to fund the projects. These new developments have led to frequent three-way interactions between financing arrangements, the mobilities of the urbanism models, and the implementation of urban infrastructures. To better understand these dynamics, this commentary extends the Graham and Marvin splintering urbanism thesis and incorporates perspectives of policy mobilities and infrastructure finances to set up a research agenda that is more attentive to finance, business operations, and their associated power relations. This commentary aims to identify future research directions for advancing our understanding of contemporary urban infrastructure projects, especially through the lens of cities in the global South.